The disclosure relates generally to additive manufacturing systems, and more particularly, to moving a sintering device of an additive manufacturing system between two sides of a component to sinter a powder material when forming the component.
Components or parts for various machines and mechanical systems may be built using additive manufacturing systems. Additive manufacturing systems may build such components by continuously layering powder material in predetermined areas and performing a material transformation process, such as sintering or melting, on the powder material. The material transformation process may alter the physical state of the powder material from a granular composition to a solid material to build the component. The components built using the additive manufacturing systems have nearly identical physical attributes as conventional components typically made by performing machining processes on stock material but certain geometrical features (form) can be only obtained through additive manufacturing methods.
Forming the components using the conventional additive manufacturing systems require a significant amount of build-time. This may be especially true when the component is large and includes a large number of layers and/or when the geometry of the component is complex. Components are formed by sintering the powder material using a plurality of hatch patterns. Specifically, a sintering device may sinter each layer of the powder material forming the component by following a specifically generated hatch pattern. The area of a component to be sintered within each layer represents and/or is formed using the hatch pattern. The hatch pattern includes a plurality of individual stripes and/or individual lines of the sintered or melted powder material with a predetermined width, shorter than the dimension(s) (e.g., width, length, depth and so on) of the entire component. The stripes may be formed by operating (e.g., turning on) the sintering device over a predetermined distance (e.g., stripe width), shutting down the sintering device (e.g., turning off), repositioning the sintering device to form another stripe of the same hatch pattern and operating the sintering device again. This process is repeated until all stripes of the hatch pattern are formed, and then repeated again to form a distinct hatch pattern on the component. The operational down time of the sintering device (e.g., shutting down and repositioning) each time a stripe if formed using the conventional process accounts for a significant amount of build time for the component. Additionally, in the areas of the component that include unique features (e.g., angled side walls) individual stripes or lines of the hatch pattern may be shortened to compensate for the change in geometry of the component based on the unique features. As a result, the area of the component including the shortened stripes or lines may be more susceptible to defects.